It’s probably better that things turned out this way. That they waited till—after. Well, during, actually, during the middle of the Battle for Hogwarts, and Ron’s always torn between feeling guilty that he finally got exactly what he wanted while a battle that would take so many lives raged on (Fred and Professor Lupin and Tonks and so many others and sometimes it seems like their names are written on the insides of his eyelids and when he has nightmares, he jokes even more the next morning to make up for it, but Hermione’s eyes are knowing and her hands brush sure against his) or grateful that there’s one perfect memory to offset the hell that was that day (kisses with Lavender never made him feel giddytriumphantcertain, and she definitely never tasted like cinnamon and comfortexcitementwarmth).
But it’s probably better. If it had happened during their school days, it made have seemed like a childhood thing—puppy love, blundering into adolescence with the most convenient person (she was there, after all, always within reach if he’d only been able to overcome his certainty that he’d never, ever get anything he really wanted, but wouldn’t that have been far too easy? They’ve never done anything the easy way). And if they’d been together during those months on the run with Harry, he has no doubts that the weight of the locket and the gnawing worry for those he’d left behind would have driven him to say something unforgivable, something he would never be able to take back, something even he and Hermione would never be able to recover from (they know how to hurt each other better than anyone else can ever imagine, and even if they know how to move past that hurt, too, there are some things that would break even them, and he says a prayer of thanks after every argument that he’s never crossed that line in the heat of the moment).
And yeah, it was a bloody long time coming, and the waiting was always the hardest part, but it was more than worth it (Ron Weasley has a whole pile of regrets that he’s struggling to learn not to carry around with him, but waiting for the time when he and Hermione could finally meet each other face to face is definitely not one of them).
(No matter what anyone says, that hesitation wasn’t one of his sins, and in this one thing, he has nothing to forgive himself for.).